Wireline - Summer 2017

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2 4 | W I R E L I N E | SUMMER 2017
effort to communicate with them, to
tell themwhat we’re doing and what the
challenges are, and they’vemade
an effort to understand and help
wherever possible.”
In November 2016, the OGA awarded
Hurricane the Innovate Licence for
Halifax in an out-of-round application.
The Innovate Licence, launched last year,
allows licensees to work with the OGA
to design an optimal work programme
and implements a process for better
monitoring of progress.
The next key step for Hurricane is
the final investment decision on the
Lancaster Early Production System (EPS).
The company is targeting first oil in 2019.
Robert says: “For the UK oil and gas
industry, our activity has de-risked a
new play to a significant degree and this
opens up the question of what other
new plays are yet to be drilled. I’ma firm
believer that the UKCS has got a lot more
oil in it and it just takes committed teams
with focus and funds to evaluate those
yet-to-be-tried opportunities.”
Drilling deep
Hurricane Energy CEO Dr Robert Trice has
praised contractor Transocean for its joint
work on a contracting model for the 265-day
hire of the Transocean Spitsbergen rig for
Hurricane’s recent drilling campaign.
The programme saw one development well
(Lancaster sidetrack), one appraisal well (Lancaster),
one intervention on the 2014 horizontal well (in preparation for well
completions in 2018) and two exploration (Lincoln and Halifax)
wells being drilled.
Robert adds: “Transocean’s pragmatic approach to commercial and
contractual negotiations has been a breath of fresh air in today’s
tough industry environment and has facilitated Hurricane’s successful
campaign during a time when UK exploration and appraisal drilling has
been at a low.
“We have now completed the well stock for our Early Production
System for Lancaster and, in the process, materially increased and
de-risked the resource volumes associated with it. The exploration wells
on Lincoln and Halifax have resulted in the discovery of extensive oil
columns and we therefore expect that later iterations will significantly
upgrade our resource base on both the Greater Lancaster and Greater
Warwick Areas.”
Well operations
In the first contract of its kind in the UK,
Petrofac has been appointed well operator
by Hurricane, with responsibility for all future
exploration, appraisal and development
wells activities.
The well operator capability has evolved
from Petrofac’s outsourced Service Operator Model, which combines
the responsibilities of installation operator, pipeline operator and well
operator for the first time to support independent operators that are
entering the UKCS.
Alex Macdonald, who leads Petrofac’s well engineering team, believes
it represents a new model for collaboration. “As the industry adapts
to new economic realities, almost everywhere we are seeing clients
develop lean operating models. By focusing on their core expertise and
turning to trusted partners for everything else, they can benefit from
significantly reduced operating costs,” he says.
“We will work closely with Hurricane to assure well integrity and
deliver a safe and cost efficient drilling programme to support further
advancement of the development.”
Petrofac is also playing a key role in the ongoing front end engineering
design (FEED) study for Lancaster’s Early Production System.
We work with people
who are innovative
thinkers, building
on current industry
thinking and
learnings
whether that’s in
engineering, cost
controls or geology.
“
”
Hurricane Energy | Profile